Last question. Do you plant your seed straight into your final pot or do you transplant from another? I posted the main question to another forum and the people there say I will have issues with the roots because I planted my seed straight into its final home. Appreciate it
Does calmag count towards your target PPM or EC in distilled or RO water?
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Less problems to deal with if you plant direct. Easy to stunt autos and they won't have time to recover from transplant shock. There are ways to transplant but it's easier to plant direct
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I do it both ways all depends on space and what's happening. But I do prefer to plant directly in final home with auto's they can be sensitive. If you want to transplant I can show you a pretty stress free way with two solo cups. But with auto's you need to be fast and transplant ASAP hence why I prefer directly planting with them
I'll be direct planting tomorrow in coco. Just finishing up buffering. Sprouts will usually pop up in 3-5 days
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I grow in coco with GH liquid nutes. I soak the bean 24 hours in tap water then drop it in final pot, usually 3 gallon with 100% germ rate so you’re fine. I pre soak the pot the day before with tap water as well. At day 3 and 5 I’ll water a ring about the size of a solo cup (tap again) and starting on day 8 I’m doing 50% strength of week 2 feed schedule (my schedule is for photos) and watering every day from that ring outwards to the edge until runoff. I water to runoff every time because when I first started I was told it was good to flush the previous salts out every day. I’ve never had problems so I’ve never changed my routine.
For two years I strictly followed the schedule and didn’t pay attention to ec/ppm and grew beautiful plants, then I switched to ro water, fell down the rabbit hole of trying to adjust a schedule that was already working fine, and all it did was mess with my head lol. So I’m back to tap water and not checking ec/ppm anymore. I have horrible water, my tap starts out at 400 ppm but at least I don’t have to worry about enough calmag for ro water. When I finally got to checking the ec/ppm it turns out that in my blissful ignorance I’ve been feeding them at 650-700 ppm on day 8 and up to about 1400 in mid flower, and they’re gorgeous.
So I wouldn’t stress the ec/ppm until you’re seeing twisted leaves or yellow tips on the leaves which would tell you to dial back the nutes a bit, maybe 25% less.
For two years I strictly followed the schedule and didn’t pay attention to ec/ppm and grew beautiful plants, then I switched to ro water, fell down the rabbit hole of trying to adjust a schedule that was already working fine, and all it did was mess with my head lol. So I’m back to tap water and not checking ec/ppm anymore. I have horrible water, my tap starts out at 400 ppm but at least I don’t have to worry about enough calmag for ro water. When I finally got to checking the ec/ppm it turns out that in my blissful ignorance I’ve been feeding them at 650-700 ppm on day 8 and up to about 1400 in mid flower, and they’re gorgeous.
So I wouldn’t stress the ec/ppm until you’re seeing twisted leaves or yellow tips on the leaves which would tell you to dial back the nutes a bit, maybe 25% less.
I really appreciate this.
What is this "buffering" you're finishing up?
Most better bagged and many bricked coco products are pre-buffered. Unless the label or consensus of product users says to do something to "buffer" the coco before use, I wouldn't mess with it. I've used bagged cocos for many years and never buffered it. Just pre-treat/soak the coco with diluted base nutrients.
And nowadays if you use the proper base nutes (with low ppm water), you shouldn't need to up front or regularly add Ca/Mg. For ex., I use MegaCrop 2-part base nutes and maybe add calmag once during a grow. A good number of nutrient companies now have coco-specific base nutrient products (with higher Ca/Mg). If plants need Ca/Mg, I suggest foliar feeding (ideally using Transport) - that way you avoid problems from adding these salts to your feed water.
Most better bagged and many bricked coco products are pre-buffered. Unless the label or consensus of product users says to do something to "buffer" the coco before use, I wouldn't mess with it. I've used bagged cocos for many years and never buffered it. Just pre-treat/soak the coco with diluted base nutrients.
And nowadays if you use the proper base nutes (with low ppm water), you shouldn't need to up front or regularly add Ca/Mg. For ex., I use MegaCrop 2-part base nutes and maybe add calmag once during a grow. A good number of nutrient companies now have coco-specific base nutrient products (with higher Ca/Mg). If plants need Ca/Mg, I suggest foliar feeding (ideally using Transport) - that way you avoid problems from adding these salts to your feed water.
But would this same baseline (presumably of the water held by the coco) be achieved if you simply did a good drain-to-waste initial charging of the coco with your initial nutrient formulation containing your preferred level of Ca/Mg? I presume yes. Is this buffering now a ritual left over from when base nutes were simpler N-P-K products, without everything else now included in base nutrient products, including Ca/Mg? Seems so to me.
What instructions do you use, and do you recommend this for other coco users?
I'd trust manufacturer buffering and quality control way before that done by end-users. To me, this rinsing, soaking and charging is increasingly not needed as more manufacturers pre-buffer their coco products or otherwise have to compete. In the current market, there is no need to use coco actually needing end-user buffering. For example, recently in another thread it was generally agreed that Canna coco is among those good to go right out of the bag.
Check out the article at https://hortamericas.com/blog/buffering-coir-not-necessary-if-its/. Among other things it notes, "“If coir is washed well and its EC is below 0.5 mS/cm or lower, then the coir shouldn’t have to be buffered for most crops.”
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